Lieutenant-General Dan Patrick stood before reporters during a Tuesday morning news conference in which he excited Democrats and many in the media about the spread of ‘lies’ about Senate Bill 7, a measure that would give access to the vote in the state would be restricted.
“Left, the Democrats, many in the media, some in this room, across the state, across the country, have unfortunately changed the word from ‘voter security’ to ‘voter oppression’ or ‘voter restriction’,” Patrick, a Republican, angry said. “Senate Bill 7 is about voter security, not about voter oppression, and I’m tired of lies and the nest of liars who keep repeating them.”
Before Patrick explained how the bill would amend the state election code, Patrick said something he would repeat during the 35-minute press conference.
“Nothing has changed in the election code (under SB7) regarding early voting. Nothing has changed,” he said.
SB 7 was passed by the Texas Senate last week along party lines and is one of two bills being considered by the Legislature. SB 7 is similar to bills in Georgia and other states to reduce local control over elections.
The bill would prohibit local election administrators from extending the early voting hours and operating drive-through polling stations. It would also prevent election officials from submitting applications for ballots without the request of a voter, and would allow, among other things, partisan voters to gain more access to polling stations during voting time.
Patrick said the measures were intended to restore people’s confidence in American democracy after the 2020 presidential election. Patrick continued the false allegations of former President Donald Trump that the 2020 election was plagued by voter fraud. In November, the lieutenant governor offered $ 1 million in rewards to anyone who provided information that led to the arrest and conviction of voter fraud. (When asked by a reporter On Tuesday, when he was rewarding John Fetterman, Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, he says Patrick provided two cases to Trump voters in the name of their deceased mothers, Patrick said: ‘I did not come here to ask stupid questions of the media. “)
“People in America have lost confidence in their election,” he said. “We have to solve the problem in this country and in this state. That is why SB 7 is needed.”
For this fact check, we focus on Patrick’s first assertion – that SB 7 would not change anything in the election code regarding early voting. Let’s see how the bill will affect early voting.
Revision of the text of the bill
Patrick said during the news conference that many elements of the bill were directed at Harris County. Electoral officers in the state’s largest province opened eight 24-hour polling stations during part of the early voting period in areas with large numbers of overnight workers, near medical centers and the shipping lane. The province also opened polling stations during early voting to alleviate the concerns about coronavirus. Nearly 145,000 Texans exercised these new voting options during the general election, which helped the country surpass its all-time record before the early voting period was over.
Patrick said that provincial officials had devised these methods “out of thin air” and that they were not explicitly allowed by state law. Provincial officials argue that nothing in the law precludes 24-hour voting or drive-through seats, and several IDP challenges last year for the expanded voting methods were unsuccessful.
“24 hours of early voting and early voting were not included in the election code until Harris County decided to use it anyway … So, nothing has changed,” Patrick spokesman Patrick Aranyi said. said.
If approved, SB 7 would codify Republicans’ objections to the vote and the 24-hour vote in the state election code. For Roxanne Werner, deputy director of communications for Harris County elections, this is a noticeable change.
“There are definitely a number of things that will change under SB7, especially with early voting. Some of the more obvious things are the drive-through spots and the lack of extended early voting,” Werner said. “There are several things in SB 7 that are related to early voting, so I’m surprised to hear (Patrick)’s specific statement.”
For example, the text of the bill would eliminate the 24-hour vote by adding language to the election code that requires an ‘early vote’ to take place for a period of at least nine hours, except that no earlier than 06:00 or later than may be voted. 9 nm.
And it would ban the drive-through vote – during the early voting period or on election day – by adding language that says ‘no voter may cast a vote from a motor vehicle.’
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Robert Stein, a Rice University political scientist who has worked and studied with Harris County’s electoral system, said the changes proposed in SB 7 are obvious.
“What do you mean nothing has changed?” Stein said and responded to Patrick’s claim. “Then why do you write SB 7? You change the law to prevent someone from doing something they have done in the past.”
David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, agrees, noting that SB 7 will make Texas one of the most restrictive states in the country. Becker said SB 7 “will concentrate more votes on a single day” by discouraging early voting and postal voting.
“I think it’s really hard to restrict SB 7 if not the early voting, since early voting has been allowed to work under Texas law in a much more comprehensive way,” Becker said.
All the changes put together in SB 7, the general effect of the bill, as in bills in other states, is the removal of authority from local election officials, Becker said.
‘The fact is that the election code, like every election code does, leaves areas for local government to run their elections, and there was nothing in the code that previously said you could not vote through, that said you could not “did not do 24/7 votes, it said you can not do temporary buildings for early voting,” he said. “It has absolutely changed.”
Our verdict
Patrick told a news conference that “nothing has changed in the election code (under SB 7) regarding early voting.”
SB 7 makes numerous changes to the state’s election code, many of which relate to the ways in which people can vote early. The major changes to early voting include limiting early voting hours and limiting the types of sites where people can vote early.
We review this claim Pants on fire.